Briefings in a federal appeal of a ban on commercial interim storage of spent nuclear fuel may not be finished until January, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket.
The Supreme Court case consolidates two appeals of a 2023 ruling in which a lower court, responding to a lawsuit by the state of Texas, held that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may not license companies to consolidate and store spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants.
NRC and parties supporting it have until Dec. 2 to file new briefs in the case for the high court. The state of Texas and parties supporting it have until Jan. 15 to respond, according to a court order dated Friday. It was the court’s first public mention of a timetable in the case since Oct. 4, when the court said it would hear oral arguments.
In 2023, following a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas two years before, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2023 banned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from licensing the commercial interim storage of spent nuclear fuel.
In the process, the court stripped two companies of NRC licenses to store spent fuel for the long term: Interim Storage Partners, a joint venture of Orano and Waste Control Specialists, and Holtec International.
The appeals circuit appeared split on that issue. In August, as part of a lawsuit brought by environmental groups against NRC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia did not contest NRC’s ability to legally license consolidation and storage of spent fuel away from the reactors that created it.
The U.S. Supreme Court is an independent branch of the federal government. The current Supreme Court term began in October and runs through June. Oral arguments were scheduled into April for this term. The court typically takes three months off in the summer.
